ON THE NOTION OF CAUSE 185 



logical possibility that the cause, after existing placidly 

 for some time, should suddenly explode into the effect, 

 when it might just as well have done so at any earlier 

 time, or have gone on unchanged without producing its 

 effect. This dilemma, therefore, is fatal to the view that 

 cause and effect can be contiguous in time ; if there are 

 causes and effects, they must be separated by a finite 

 time-interval r, as was assumed in the above inter 

 pretation of the first definition. 



What is essentially the same statement of the law of 

 causality as the one elicited above from the first of 

 Baldwin s definitions is given by other philosophers. 

 Thus John Stuart Mill says : 



&quot; The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the 

 main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth, 

 that x in variability of succession is found by observation 

 to. obtain between every fact in nature and some other 

 fact which has preceded it.&quot; 1 



And Bergson, who has rightly perceived that the law 

 as stated by philosophers is worthless, nevertheless con 

 tinues to suppose that it is used in science. Thus he 

 says : 



&quot; Now, it is argued, this law [the law of causality] 

 means that every phenomenon is determined by its 

 conditions, or, in other words, that the same causes 

 produce the same effects. 



And again - 



&quot; We perceive physical phenomena, and these pheno 

 mena obey laws. This means : (i) That phenomena 

 a, b, c, d, previously perceived, can occur again in the 

 same shape ; (2) that a certain phenomenon P, which 



1 Logic, Bk. Ill, Chap. V, 2. 

 7 Time and Free- Will, p. JQQ. 



